In this video, we'll look at how to set smart behavioral goals. In the last video, I walked you through the process for setting SMART goals. And it's relatively easy to get a SMART goal when it's based on making more of something or saving time or money. When many team leaders struggle, though, is agreeing what we call behavioral goals, as they see much more difficult to measure or quantify. And yet they're very important. Behavioral goals focus on how we are being how other people experience us, not just on what we're doing.

So I mean, things like communication, confidence, relationship building, influencing, listening, team working, assertiveness, they're all what we call behavioral skills. But how do you turn those skills into something you can measure so you can click Seeing improvements in the desired behavior. Or sometimes you can measure behavior change simply by observing it. And that might be enough. But I think we can probably improve on that. Let's take Steve as an example.

You want Steve to communicate more effectively? But what does that really mean? Are we talking about his verbal communication? or written? Or both? Do you want him to communicate more often?

More succinctly, to send more emails or fewer emails? Do you want him to have more one to one conversations? Do you want him to be less abrupt or more assertive? Do you want him to listen more and interrupt less? What do you actually mean? If the so called goal is ambiguous or wooly, it won't be achieved.

So this is how we can help Steve gets smart with this goal. The very first step is to prepare Ask yourself this question, what's the real issue with Steve's communication? I find it really helps to write it down. Or to say it out loud as if you were telling a story or talking to a friend over coffee about Steve and the way it works. You can record it into your phone if you want. Think about the things that really annoy you or upset you or frustrate you about Steve.

Now remember, this is your preparation. So you don't have to share this stuff with him. It's just for you. So you might say or you might write. Steve's a really great guy, but he's a bit of a loner, he tends to withhold information or he forgets to pass it on. Which means the rest of the team is sometimes left in the dark or we find we're duplicating things.

When we do get into share, he goes on forever. He mumble so we cannot can't always hear him and he goes off at tangents and give too much detail that frankly, we don't really need So you can see people losing interest switching off, and our meetings invariably overrun. Frankly, I want to scream and tell him to shut up. Okay, we've got it. What you're saying is that there are two main focus areas is verbal communication skills needs to be improved. And his ability to work with others need to be improved, smart.

No, not yet. So here's step two, hone in on what Steve needs to stop doing, and start doing and where, in what specific situations and with whom. Remember, this should be crystal clear, with no room for ambiguity. They'll probably be maybe three or four things that you'd like him to start with, because you certainly don't want to overwhelm him with a massive list of things that that need changing. So here are some examples of the types of things that you and Steve might agree together and all the goals focus on Working with others and communicating succinctly, am I smart? So here's his first goal.

Meet with them once a week for half an hour starting next week to share key information from the weekly finance meeting. goal to an and Steve then to produce a bullet pointed one page summary report outlining their recommended actions for the finance team. And this has to be shared verbally with the team in a 10 minute presentation, followed by 10 minutes q&a. Gold three, attend the voice coaching master class next month and share your key learning points with the team at our next team meeting. goal for ask three of your colleagues how you can work with them to help them achieve their SMART goals by the end of this month. So you see those four goals address the issues you want Steve to improve His verbal communication and working with others, but they're much more tangible than be a better communicator.

They're smart. You and Steve agreed them together. And Steve is hoping for a promotion next year. He's really bought into them. He's emotionally connected to getting better at communicating and working with others. Because the No, no, he knows the role he's hoping for really needs those skills.

Of course, you'll help him further than just agreeing the goals by using the how, what how when approach we talked about in the last video on smart goals, because that will really help him work on those goals in a bit more detail. And of course, it goes without saying that as his team leader, you'll review progress with him on a regular basis, and give him the necessary support and feedback that he needs. You'll ask him how he's going, what he's learned. If there's anything he Finding difficult, what is the cheat that he feels really proud of? how he's feeling about working in these new ways, what reaction he's getting from other people. In fact a little bit further down the line, you might ask him to set himself a truly aspirational or wow goal where and have an opportunity to showcase his new skills.

Aspirational and wild goals is where we're going in our next video.